Starting with June. Emilie Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ rocking chair, for pity’s sake. Like a geriatric retiree. He pushed that U-G-L-Y visual aside.

      Chicken. Someone was grilling chicken. One from the henhouse? His lips twitched when he recalled June’s remark. Blondie had a sense of humor. Blocking out the memory of her sparkling green eyes and the tantalizing smell, he bit into a brownie. The rich chocolaty taste of the moist treat almost made him groan. He shoved the remainder of the square into his mouth and reached for another.

      “Do you always eat dessert first?”

      He jumped. His neighbor had snuck up on him. Nobody ever got the drop on him. In his line of work—former line of work—that meant death or torture. Preferably the former. He swallowed.

      “I didn’t mean to startle you.” June stood on the ground beside his porch watching him through the pickets.

      “You didn’t.”

      Her megawatt smile revealed she knew he’d lied. “If you say so, Rivers. I heard the store closed before you got there.”

      Had she spoken to Roth? “How?”

      “Lesson one about Quincey. People here know what you’re doing before you do. And they talk about it. Gossip is our local sport and we have the championship team.”

      He’d known he was being watched when he’d hiked back to get his car, but he’d hoped to blend in with the weekend antiques hunters wandering the streets. He’d have to work harder at moving under the radar if he was going to do his job well.

      She lifted another plastic container the shrubbery had hidden from view. “Here’s half a beer-can chicken, a couple of ears of grilled corn—locally grown—and some garlic-cheddar biscuits.”

      His taste buds snapped to attention, but the rest of him balked. He wasn’t stupid. There was only one reason a woman baked and cooked for a man, slipped him her number and offered to show him hiking trails while wearing a bikini that displayed the smorgasbord on offer. The phrase she’d said when they first met echoed in his head. I’ve been waiting for you, she’d said in that throaty voice of hers.

      Sam did not need any local honey sticking to his feet and making extraction difficult. The best thing he could do was head her off at the pass. It would save them both a lot of embarrassment later.

      “June, I appreciate your generosity, but I’m a no-strings kind of guy. I am not looking for a relationship.”

      Her spine snapped as straight as a new recruit’s. Then crimson flagged her cheekbones. “Zip it, Rivers. I’m not trying to get into your britches. I’m only being neighborly and looking out for you the way Madison asked me to. I brought food to get you through until you can get to the store tomorrow afternoon. They don’t open until twelve-thirty on Sundays—after the owner gets out of church. Ditto the diner.”

      She shoved the container under the porch rail. “It’s not like I lit candles, slipped into something sexy and invited you over. Eat this or don’t. I could not care less if you starve. But don’t leave my dishes outside. The nocturnal critters will destroy them.

      “You’re on your own for breakfast, though. Like I said, there will be eggs in the coop. Get ’em yourself. If you dare. Brittany has a sharp beak and a mean streak. I’ll let you figure out which hen she is.”

      Then she pivoted and stalked across the grass toward her rear patio. Chagrinned, Sam mentally smacked his forehead and silently cursed as he watched the angry swing of her departing hips. Infiltrating meant making nice with the locals and blending in—something he’d done hundreds, no, thousands, of times. But he’d struck out on both counts with his new neighbor. Her observations also made him realize that if he wanted to keep his privacy, he’d better shop outside of town.

      As for donning something sexy...if June could see the way those jeans hugged her butt, she’d realize she was far off target on that comment.

      Worse, he’d forgotten to give her the signed lease. He’d have to face her again tonight...unless he could figure out a way to circumnavigate that land mine.

CHAPTER TWO

      JUNE HIT THE punching bag hard enough to rattle her teeth and make her wish she’d put in her mouth guard. Then she gave her leather target a one-two combination. The smacks of solid contact didn’t give her much satisfaction.

      She usually took the Sunday shift so the other deputies could go to church with their families. But not today. Today she was wailing the tarnation out of an inanimate object. Because she couldn’t wallop her new neighbor.

      Sam had taped the signed lease to her front door last night while she’d been out on her run. He hadn’t even had the decency to give it to her face-to-face. And he’d rumbled down the driveway this morning in his black Charger without visiting the henhouse for eggs. She wouldn’t mind if he never returned. The last thing Quincey needed was another sexist prick.

      “Idiot.” Cross. Pow. “Jerk.” Uppercut. Thump. “Coward.”

      As the only female deputy on the Quincey PD, not only currently but in the history of the department, she’d had her fill of males who considered her weak or inferior. She had to work doubly hard and be twice as good as her male counterparts to be taken seriously. There were those who claimed she had been hired only because she’d spent a chunk of her childhood at the retired chief’s house playing with his daughter. That might be half-true, but she’d make darn sure Piper’s dad never regretted his decision.

      Liver punch. Hook. Elbow stab. Pivot. High kick. Sweat rolled into her eyes. She impatiently swiped it away with her forearm.

      “Who rattled your cage?”

      June spun around. Piper, the retired chief’s daughter, stood just outside the barn. June lowered her arms. “The new tenant. He’s a chauvinistic ass.”

      “He’s here?”

      “Moved in yesterday. Drove out at seven this morning.”

      “What’d he do? I’ve never seen you so worked up.”

      “I prepared a welcome basket and then took him dinner last night. He thought I was making a pass and let me know it was an unwelcome one.” Her skin burned anew with a fresh rush of humiliation.

      Piper wrinkled her nose. “He’s not from around here, is he? What does he do?”

      “He’s not a local, and I don’t know what he does.”

      “Your interrogation skills failed? Because I know you tried.”

      Okay, so she asked a lot of questions, but knowing what people were doing was part of her job description. “He wouldn’t say and since your husband ordered me to stay out of the station, I can’t run the guy’s tags or do a background check on him.” Though she had memorized his driver’s license number just in case she got a chance to slip into the office.

      “Do you think you should check him out?”

      “I’m going to live next to him. None of us lock our doors. And he’s...” She tried to find the words to explain her gut feeling. Sam made her uncomfortable. СКАЧАТЬ